Environmental noise assessment of Bhandara City in the adversity of COVID-19 pandemic: A crowdsourcing approach

Abstract

The strict enforcement of lockdown in India and worldwide to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemics has brought a signiicant change in the environmental quality, particularly in cities. The study deliberates an overview of the status of the ambient noise quality of the tier-2 city Bhandara, India, for lockdown and posts lockdown circumstances. In the course of lock-down, it is unfeasible to walk out with standard instruments for onsite noise monitoring with the conventional method in such adversity. Make use of the crowdsourcing approach proves to be the best alternative for collecting noise data with the help of an android-based noise application, "Noise Tracker."On assessing gathered data, it ascertained that the noise levels deplete by 8.0 dB during the lockdown. Results indicated that the average noise levels in more than 80% of the locations are lowered during lock-down compared to post lockdown in Bhandara City. A signiicant reduction in average noise levels at all sites during the lockdown period attributing to limiting in the road, rail, and other traic movements. The study is an exclusive example of ordinary people from tier-2 city indulging in environmental scientiic research. The study also visualizes the noise pollution scenario of lockdown and post lockdown periods using noise maps.